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tour diary – sunday 03.30 – madison, in

we woke up super early, especially given that most of us stayed up very late the previous evening, but ryan messed up and lost the directions and info for the show so we had to get going early to make sure we got to the show on time. it was disappointing that we didn’t have more time to hang out, but it snowing pretty crazily and we were worried about poor roads and people probably wouldn’t have woken up early enough to hang out anyway. besides, we would see many of the kids soon enough when we played in columbus. so, as we stumbled over the heaps of sleeping bodies on the apartment floor we eventually woke them up and embraced as we said goodbye (i always forget just how tall ryan is until i hug him and my head only barely comes up to his chest). our paths would cross soon enough anyway. “to the drifters!” as mikeal said in his thank-you note.

“not the hair of the living.” i don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but chad put letters on the front of the van that say “this mutant kills zombies.” it’s a fun conversation point at the very least. when we pulled up to this gas station in southern Kentucky, ryan remarked, “look guys, it’s a zombie” and it was true, this haggard old lady totally looked like one of the undead. and she was perusing the cheesy truck stop trinkets. zombies love knick-knacks! when we went in the store, we realized to our horror that the place was infested with zombies. I couldn’t stop laughing out loud imagining all the old folks trying to eat my brains. lizzy-jean took forever to go to the bathroom, she claims there was a long line. we suspect they may have gotten her.

tour diary – saturday 03.29 – asheville, nc

ridiculously beautiful. john said that taking 441 through the mountains might even be a little faster and the views would be awesome, so that’s the road that we took from Athens into the nc mountains. it was definitely beautiful as we passed vista after vista and waterfall after waterfall. growing up in the appalachian mountains in pa, i like to say that i grew up near mountains, but looking out the car window over the nc landscape I realized that these were mountains.

ridiculously perilous. somehow bz always ends up driving away from a town named athens when conditions are dangerous. this time it wasn’t snow and ice, however, but the most windy narrow road ever. we pissed off the locals as we drove slowly up the mountain, and the mutant was making some strange noises and smells for a while. the twists and turns were making some in the van sick, and the slow going meant that the drive was taking much longer than the three and a half hours promised by mapquest. that and we had been lax in getting show info so we didn’t know how early we had to be at the show. so, between stressing out about being late for the show, being carsick, and being disappointed that our late arrival meant less time to catch up with old friends, we were a pretty grumpy lot.

we eventually rolled into asheville and the apartment of former sweet life kids katelynn and ryan. when we got in the door, it was like we were in columbus again. adam, michelle, and matt had taken adam’s parents car down from ohio. clare and brett had hitchhiked down*. so a good portion of our friends were hanging out and having a good time. we hung out and ate a delicious but hurried meal of sauted green beans before driving to the show at the secluded warren wilson college campus.

we had no idea where on the campus the show was, but we hoped that the campus was small enough that we could spot the other tour vans. we got to campus and there didn’t seem to be a soul around, but we found a flyer that seemed to indicate that there was indeed a show and that it started at 8 meaning that we were only a little late. we eventually got directions to the show space and it and after a few wrong turns a frightening low-speed collision with a brick wall, we found the place where the show was. as we pulled up, we were greeted by carter from “the dead hate the living” so it seemed like everything was cool.

the show was in a little coffee shop in the basement of a dorm, which seems like it would be pretty weird, but there were already a lot of kids at the show when we arrived and it seemed like a nice mixture of college kids and town kids. we played first and it was awesome to have not only our friends dancing and having a good time, but a lot of kids from Asheville. this was awesome because I was expecting the worst since this show was more of a hardcore show. there was some kid who even remembered us from our frightened first show in little rock on new years. despite the fact that that show was enough to make anybody a little hostile to our music, the kid said that he liked the show when I talked with him a little after the show. also there were two kids up front who I had never met before who were singing along which was confusing but totally awesome. even though we messed up the beginning of just about every song, it was still a really good show.

after we played, “the dead hate the living” played. they were a million times better than when we played with them in Richmond and seemed much more energized. the kids seemed to really like them and there was a big ol’ pit going on during their set. it was a good time.

after that, jason who said up the show’s band, “shovelfight” (aka “sink the fucker”) played. seeing the guys in the band, one would expect some crusty, agro hardcore, but what they played was awesome emotive hardcore with nice political lyrics. the kids went nuts. i thought they were really good, and they even put mikeal in a better mood. all the kids in the band were super nice too. they’re going on tour soon and if you get a chance to see these guys, do it!

finally, “asschapel” played. think of the a hardcore band with the most ridiculous over-the-top metal motifs one can imagine and that pretty much sums them up. shirtless long-haired singer jumping from atop the drums, double encores, and slayer covers, they had it all. it was so over-the-top that it could be completely disastrous, but it was totally awesome.

asheville seems to have an awesome punk scene with a lot of really nice kids. as jason said “asheville is all about fun”. this show was definitely the biggest one yet, and one of the most fun.

after the show we went back to katelynn and ryan’s where I finally got to check my e-mail. Jeremy cooked up some awesome tofu reubans while chad and ryan indulged in the riblet. I got to have a pretty long talk with katelynn and it was awesome to get to hang out with her since we always got along really well when we lived together at the sweet life. it’s always weird talking to her because she’s so sweet but her conversations are always coated with a hint of melancholy that makes me sort of sad. but she seemed to be doing pretty well and it was really good to get to see her and ryan again. i hung out for a while before falling asleep, but will and mikeal stayed up early into the morning. clare, the new master of amazing looking stick-and-poke tattoos gave will a cool f-hole tattoo on his wrist.

* while “shovelfight” was setting up, clare recounted her hitchhiking adventure to me and it wasn’t catastrophic or super eventful by any means but filled with some wild characters. i hope that either clare or brett will document their travels themselves, but I’ll just recount a brief summary because I think the stories are so good. they were pretty lucky getting rides the whole way down with only one long 3 hour wait. the rides included the nice twenty-something girl, the perky high schooler, and a few others, but the ones that remain in my memory from the story are “the creepazoid”, “the cool dad”, and “the crook”.

“the creepazoid” was their first ride and he took them across Columbus. the way clare recounted it, he was just sort of this typical moderately crazed, disheveled, overweight, middle-aged guy. when they got in the car, brett noticed some photos, and being a photo geek himself, asked the driver if he was into photography. he said yes, and he showed them some ridiculous pictures of his parents, etc. then came the kicker that was a definite high mark on the creepiness scale. he started talking about some girl that he was “going to marry, but she didn’t know it yet” and showed them a ton of pictures that he had taken of some hooters waitress looking completely creeped out.

the ride that clare and brett got to the ‘natti was labeled “the cool dad” by clare. not long into the ride he whipped out the weed and told clare and brett about his stash and his kid stealing from it and only pretending that he cared to appease his wife. apparently a joint was produced and things only got scary when beer was offered. I imagine beer + car + stranger driving is a rather anxious situation.

the ride that was by far the most memoreable, at least as the story was related to me was “the crook”. this was a long ride, and it sounds like the guy was kind of tweaking and crazy and super talkative, so it’s hard to piece together the whole story, but basically, the driver was a professional crook. apparently this was even obvious from the appearance of the guy as he was driving a slick (sleazy?) late model convertible with a ton of miles on it, driving it way too fast, and wearing those crazy sleazy sunglasses. a con, a drug smuggler, the kind of lowlife who goes from town to town seeking out his own kind to make a quick buck – the kind of crook that is a staple in noir films but that you’d never expect to meet in real life. so he told a ton of stories that, hearing them secondhand, are either blatantly lies or so ridiculous that they have to be true. here’s the quick summary: car crashes and the disappearance of a trunkful of cash, giving brett and clare a primer on identity theft, talking about plotting to kill his double-crossing lawyer, his grand (and lucrative) scheme to scam a popular chain of roadside eateries, and stealing planes (“it’s easier than stealing a car”) to smuggle drugs over the border. the funniest part is that he seemed to be trying to recruit new crooks amway style. he gave brett his contact info in case he knew of a “hacker” who could come up with a way to clean his credit history, and when it came up that clare had recently dropped out of college, the crook asked if she had considered becoming a crook and leading “the crooked life!” when he let them off, brett asked to take his picture as he had been doing with all the rides on their trip he declined saying, “no, it’s probably better that you don’t take my picture. but you’ll probably be able to get it in a post office somewhere.”

tour diary – friday 03.28 – athens, ga

we drove through the night. well, ryan and chad drove through the night with me taking a turn as the sun rose. we stopped only for the occasional fill up and once for ryan, chad, and will to get some food at a waffle house. the server remarked that we looked like “that sum 41 band” and asked if he would have ever seen us on tv. i joked, “no, unless you saw will on COPS”. we eventually crashed in the early morning at a deserted state park on the south carolina/georgia border where some slept, some frolliced and we ate a spartan picnic of dumpstered english muffins, peanut butter, carrots, and apple juice. when everyone was sufficeintly revived, we loaded up and headed to athens. while hanging out at the park, i discovered that a large number of kids with whom i’m traveling are completely down with one of the most bro-dog practices i can think of – putting gold bond powder on one’s scrotum. totally lame. scrotum grinder = good, scrotum powder = bad. ryan wearing will’s hat and a sleeveless shirt made him look like a complete dude. ridiculous.

after we started out towards athens again, we came across a wal-mart and decided to use some of chad’s gift certificate to make some ridiculous purchases. i got a new toothbrush, but we got some ridiculous stuff too. we ate curly fries and soft pretzels in the food court and felt like the loitering, dirty, no-good kids that we were. chad, ryan, and will got tobacco and rolled cigarettes and looked like complete ruffians. definite six graders, all that they needed was the complete marlborro miles wardrobe to be completely authentic. i hate smoking, i think it’s stupid and it makes the van smell bad when you get in it after you’ve been smoking outside. lame. i still don’t get why otherwise intelligent people want to ingest carcinogens and smell bad. if that can be pleasureable, it seems like absolutely anything can be arbitrarily pleasureable and it would just be better to do that.

we got to athens and we were all pretty tired. chu cha, ryan, and i went to the post office so chu cha could apply for a passport and then to the jiffy lube to top up the fluids in the van while will, bz, mikeal and jonnie hung out downtown. they eventually hooked up with andre and john from carrie nations and made their way to a bar to drink cheap beer. we met them there, hung out for a while and then left to go to john’s house where we ate rice and beans and lounged on his huge porch before the show.

we got to the show space and it didn’t seem like there were that many kids there which was sort of dissappointing, but we later found that such worries were unfounded. more kids showed up as the evening got later, and all the kids there were amazingly fun. a band from florida called “darius axis” (sp?) played first, and they were pretty good – emotive post-hardcore florida sort of stuff with a lot of the melody carried by the bass. they seemed a little reserved, but they might have just been stressed out because they were supposed to play with a band they were on tour with, “the south”, and they hadn’t arrived yet. the fact that “the south” was running late meant that we had to play next, and i was kind of worried about that because we were all really tired, and ryan was super tired. we set up, and on the first note of the first song, i broke a string. i was freaked out because i never break strings, and i was tired and grumpy and was afraid ryan would freak out about more equipment breaking. luckily i had extra strings, and more luckily, the athens kids were super fun and didn’t mind waiting while we repaired stuff.

we played kind of sloppy, i think (what’s new right), but the show was a lot of fun. kids were dancing and clapping and having a good time, and that makes it a lot easier to get through parts that are kind of rough. will’s snare broke and we had to borrow another that was much quieter which weirded me out a lot when i had to play it. still, we made it through our set and it went pretty awesome. a bunch of kids said they liked it which always makes me feel akward. i still don’t know how to take a compliment and i hope i don’t come off as an asshole. but, i’m glad kids still had a fun time even though things seemed a little weird when playing.

“the south” eventually arrived and played next. pretty typical hardcore, but they played with a ton of energy and emotion. everyone was dancing and clapping – it was beautiful. in between songs, the drummer talked about some things like making punk more accessible and not turning things like straight edge or veganism or politics into exclusionary snobbishness and treating the developly challenged with respect. i guess these are pretty standard topics, and the drummer was so out of breath that he stammered and gasped and had a hard time getting the words out, but he came off as really sincere and i appreciated that. some kids hate hearing political rants at shows, but i always like it. it doesn’t matter if they’re things that we’ve all heard before, or if they’re a little rambling and incoherent (as is often the case, i’ve been told, when i try to talk about stuff like that) as long as what people are sincere, because i think it’s important to be reminded that what makes punk different for me and important for me is that its inseperable from dealing with the questions and battles that are relevent to our lives.

the last band that played was from athens and they were called, “it lives” and they played energetic rock music. everyone danced and had a good time. after the bands finished playing the place turned into a dance party and while a few of us retired to the van to crash hard, a lot of kids jerked and flailed around to cheesy 80s pop and had an amazing time. it’s been a long time since i’ve been to a good dance party in columbus and i miss them. in athens it seems like this goes down all the time and it’s awesome. i just hope that the sweet beats and laughter didn’t cause any problems with the neighbors.

we played at this community practice/show space and zine library called “tight pockets” and it was really neat. it was somewhat like the old addition13 in columbus, but i’d say more fun. it’s good to see that places like that are working out for kids in other towns. athens is supposed to be a good town for music, and i believe it. i guess rolling stone rated it as the best place for college music, and while that means a lot of ridiculous bar bands, i think it means a lot of good stuff too. it seems like people’s musical tastes are pretty eclectic and the punk kids even seem to have a certain respect for local legends like the b52s and rem while the more mainstream music types seem pretty supportive of the diy scene. it struck me as kind of like austin, but in a more organice, small town sort of way.

after the dance party, we were pretty exhausted so we drove the short two blocks to john’s house and found some clear floor space (or hammock space in will’s case) and went to sleep. i must have been sleeping pretty hardcore because i think that kids were partying out on the porch until pretty late.

when we woke up i found a pile of dumpstered krispy kream donuts and later john and his housemate cooked up an awesome breakfast. nutritional yeast gravy, biscuits and spicy friend potatos – sweet! john, his housemates, his siblings (who were visiting and partying from indiana), andre, and all the kids from town are some of the nicest people ever. they were really supportive, helpful, and lots of fun. i can’t wait to go back to athens.

tour diary – tuesday 03.25 – washington d.c.

the next morning i was a bit stressed because will had gone off to hang out with brandon the previous night and wasn’t back yet. we hadn’t really given him a firm time, but we needed to get going to miss the dc traffic. we ate a hurried but delicious breakfast of tofu scrambler and still no will. we went to get the van, and luckily, will was waiting for us.

we headed off to dc and it seemed like people were getting really, really sick of riding in the car. it didn’t help that first ryan and then mikeal got us lost somewhere in maryland. still, traffic wasn’t a problem and we managed to make it to the notasquat house well before the show. when we got there, justice (justus?) was starting to cut up dumpstered veggies for what would be a crazy, elaborate, and delicious stir-fry. chad and i got out our skateboards and rolled around a little bit. there wasn’t a whole lot to skate in their neighborhood, but it felt good to do something physical after being stuck in the van all day.

after the skate, bz and i helped chop up even more veggies for the stir fry. a few more of the house’s inhabitants started coming home and a few of the other people who were playing that night arrived. the stif-fry was great, but things were a still a little akward. i’m not that gregarious, and after a few shows that were sort of weird, we were kind of worn out and reserved. so, it was great when a familiar face greeted us as we were hanging out on the back porch.

david, or spoonboy as some know him (the nickname a result of a story which he refuses to tell), is a sweet dude who i met briefly in little rock and who plays in a band called “the max levine ensemble” as well as one of the bands we played with that night, “the spirit animals”.

tour diary – monday 03.24 – brooklynn, ny

we somehow managed to navigate the tangled knot of new york city highways and made it to pete and natalja’s apartment with plenty of time before the show. we hung out for a little bit and then headed over to the show space. the space was really weird, but i guess diy spaces are few and far between in nyc, so you have to do what you can. the space was in this bar called “the right bank” which seemed, well i can’t think of any other phrase but pretnetious. we were worried that we would have to play on the little stage next to the bar, but luckily the show got moved to the gallery space upstairs even though natalja was warned that if anything happened to the art, she would be “messed up brooklynn style” (ok, that’s not what the guy really said to her, but it was pretty darn close to that and equally amusing). the whole akwardness of the situation increased when the sport-coat wearing proprieter came by and asked “are you guys in the band? where are the chicks?”

but, the show went well. the good good played great and we i had fun playing as well. it certainly went better than the previous night and people seemed to have a good time. after the show, we went outside to find a drunken brendan. i had posted the right name, but the wrong address of the show space on the website and he had gone all the way to manhatten to find it, eventually giving up in favor of getting drunk. it was funny, but i was kind of glad that he hadn’t come to the show that drunk. again, that would have been funny, but i have a feeling that it would have spawned some pretty heated personality conflicts. also, after the show, we were greeted by one of the guys from “x the owl” who we had played with in allentown. he was sorry that he had missed the show, but he brought us a copy of their cd and a mix tape he had made for the van ride! awesome! what a guy! once again the guys in “x the owl” were super nice.

will headed out with brenden and his friends, somewhat to ryan’s dismay while the rest of us headed to a frighteningly trendy thai restaurant. even though the place was super slick, it was pretty cheap. it’s pretty sad the dearth of good restaurants in columbus, a place like that in columbus would have been expensive to the point that we could never eat there. i pigged out on my delicious mock duck and avocado roll and talked with pete about gentrification. it was a good dinner.

tour diary – sunday 03.23 – providence, ri

the ride up to providence sucked. there were 11 of us, defiance, ohio, our friends, and the good good. that, combined with ryan and chad getting us lost in new jersey and running into nyc traffic meant that the ride was excruciating. there were some good parts though. we all got into that punch-drunk fatigued state eventually. there was a point where we all sang songs together which was nice. another high point was when the back seat of the van was turned into a bathroom when mindy and natalja had to go with no hopes of stopping amidst the clogged freeways around new york city. they used a blanket for privacy and filled up a big plastic cup whose top was inverted as a makeshift funnel. will then proceeded to throw the urine out the door. we were all amazed when natalja filled up nearly two of the giant cups.

we eventually got to providence and the show and things got started. some band from boston played and they were pretty good and the good good were awesome. then we played and things didn’t go so well. maybe it was the van ride and the fatigue, maybe it was an off night, but we played pretty shitty and things didn’t sound very good. will got really upset when a girl he had known in dayton and not seen in years laughed and left in the middle of the set. she wasn’t alone. it was pretty bad. but i don’t think it was that bad. it didn’t upset me. i don’t really care whether or not people like my band. what matters to me is that people at least respect me and think that the way i interact with people is generally positive. unfortunately, i think at this show, the two got confused, and the fact that the providence kids didn’t really like the show too much put many of us in really bad moods which made a lot of other interactions with people really negative. a lot of people got a really bad impression of providence, which i don’t think is really fair because i had a really good time there and people were really nice when i travelled through with ryan, mikeal, and brian in the fall. i wish that we could have just put the show behind us and tried to enjoy ourselves because i think our time in providence would have turned out much better. i appologize to anybody who i was sort of short with or rude to that day and i’m sure other people feel the same way. sometimes it’s hard to put things in perspective. people were nice enough to do a show for us and give us a place to stay, and i feel that many of us, myself included didn’t really articulate our appreciation of that.

at least “anton bordman” was good. bass and drums playing interesting sounding hardcore with intelligent lyrics. i was glad that i got the chance to see them, and mikeal was even more excited because they’re one of his favorite bands.

the evening turned out to be even more of a disappointment for will, bz, and mikeal who went to see the dancing jesus and were denied any hint of abnormality. the next morning wasn’t much better. will, who had been by far the most vocal about hating providence, to the point where i was getting pretty annoyed, was told that he “looked stupid” by some kid and we went to a diner that had tofu scrambler which was kind of cool but some gnarled old guy from the town told will to get out and “not let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.” we were all glad to leave to head to new york. i wasn’t so much dissappointed with my experience in providence, just that other people had such a bad time.

i actually like the city a lot. one reason is that it’s old, and it feels old. it has that gnarled, spooky, maritime feel to it that boston does, and i like that a lot. also a strong ethnic italian-american and portuguese american population which is a refreshing departure from the homogenization of some of the midwest. mikeal and i walked around a little trying to find a place to make duplicate keys for the mutant, we found this hardware store manned by two generations of hardware-guys. you could tell that these guys had been doing hardware all their lives and that many of the other customers were regulars who had spent countless hours amongst the dusty shelves of nuts, bolts, and paint. they spoke with a thick accent, half new-england, half italian tough guy. it was interesting and different. it’s nice that tour affords the opportunity to travel, and even if it’s expierienced only in really small chunks, the opportunity to see that some sense of history or some subtulties to american culture, call it a melting pot or whatever, still exist.

tour diary – saturday 03.22 – philadelphia, pa

this show was a little bit weird since it was a basement show right before a keg party at my friend hannah’s house. the show got set up that way because we didn’t really know anyone from philadelphia and i remembered that hannah had offered to help us out with a show when i first met her when we played with her band, “the insides” in little rock in january. it turns out that the house that she moved into was also the house of ryan’s friend kelsey from the ‘natti and my friend alicia’s (who played bass in my high school band fallout) boyfriend. it’s a small world.

so we got into town and the first thing i realized is that, damn, there are a lot of punks in philadelphia. i mean, i know everybody talks about how it’s like the east coast version of portland, but i never realized it. just walking around hannah’s west philly neighborhood, we ran into lots of people. after hannah showed us around a little bit, we went into the kitchen where ryan cooked up some of his thai peanut-based pasta. it was the first of many delicious stir-fries that we would eat on tour. the addition of mock duck from the asian market made it even better. just as we were about to eat, the good good showed up (without a van, they had taken the chinatown bus from nyc) and it was awesome to see them again. we also ran into tom from gainesville, who i had met last summer when he was visiting columbus and had recently transplanted himself in philadelphia. again, a very small world. after we were gorged on food, we played the show. the good good was awesome, i thought they were better than they had been on our first tour. they had added another drummer which made things interesting and had some different songs. they also covered this panther party song which is amazing. it’s a perfect song and they play it well. it was a lot of fun. we played and it was a little wierd, but went ok. after the show we hung out at the party and i got to talk to a bunch of really nice kids including some kid named mike who used to live in the legion back in the day, and matt’s friend natalie and her friend tom. oh yeah, before the show, i had the pleasant surprise of answering the door only to run into katrina. katrina is jimmy turri’s partner and a frequent visitor to columbus. it was nice to see a familiar face in a town where i didn’t know people particularly well. i’m usually pretty shy, so one thing i like about playing shows is that it forces you talk to people. so, i had some nice conversations with people that night.

right after we played, i looked up from packing up my stuff to see alicia! we had talked on the phone earlier that day, but unfortunately, she wasn’t able to come see the show because her band “x’s x’s” was playing at ladyfest philly. still, it was awesome to see her again and to talk to her even though it was only for a little while. she gave me a kinderegg which i gave to bz to eat, but i kept the toy which was this anthropromorphic joystick named “joey stick”. sweet!

will found some people with some common interests but not before having a strange encounter with some guy who insisted that he and bz sign his copy of the cd. weird. i think will also said something about him saying something like, “when you played all i could see was bz, and that was ok with me.” yuck. will also tried to make a second dumpster date to go to a fresh samantha’s juice/smoothie dumpster, but after we discovered that the dumpster was all the way across the river in new jersey, it was decided that it’s bounty would have to wait for the next trip to philly.

eventually, everyone else seemed to disappear, so i headed to the van and fell asleep. the next morning i walked to the show and ran into pete, natalja, and andy who were getting tofu for tofu scrambler. i got some delicious birch beer and when i got back to the house, we made some great scrambler and pancakes. it was good.

after eating, we all piled into the mutant for the drive up to providence.

tour diary – friday 03.21 – allentown, pa

it was the best of shows, it was the worst of shows – a hackneyed description yes, but the most accurate one of which i can think. i should have known that things were going to be a little less than cool when one of the members of one of the bands had an altercation with the house’s neighbor. the guy was beligerent and angry because he accused someone of pissing in his driveway and accosted brodog band guy about it. while i’m sure the encounter was unpleasant, bro dog’s response wasn’t so cool either. “i thought he was going to kill me, i would have fucked him up … that’s why i carry a knife.” and when he informed his bandmate about the encounter i was terrified of bro dog mob justice when his buddy said “duuude, that’s fucked up, let’s go find that guy.”

the first two bands were really lame. i know a lot of kids aren’t so down with the melodic hardcore that’s labeled “emo” these days by many, but I have a pretty high tolerance level for it. these bands were lame not because of their sound but because they were shitty people. so shitty, in fact, that even i feel that i am in a position to assign that label. during the first band’s set the guitar player lost his pick and got seriously agitated and had a little mid-set squabble with the singer. he got so angry that he eventually shouted some pretty choice explitives at the singer. when one of the kids watching the show asked why he didn’t just use another pick, the guitarist replied “this one was custom made” and “if i don’t find my pick i’m not playing”. it got better when before one song the singer sneered, “this song is for all the guys with girlfriends … i am sooo sorry” and later “we’re going to get naked and you’re all welcome to join us,” which mikeal informed me was not said in the hey, we’re going to run around naked and crazy in the streets (which i’m ok with), but in the staring at the teenage girls “how you doin'” sort of way.

the next band to play was even worse. before their second song, the singer announced. “this song is about spies. it’s for our bass player because he’s a spy and a fucking homo”. i went upstairs. i guess you can lead a jock to hardcore but you can’t make him drink. jordan talked to those guys after they played and told them how that kind of talk was unacceptable. the guys in the band sort of wavered and said that “it was just their way of saying ‘jerk'” and that people shouldn’t be so “pc”. fuck them. i’m so sick of people being down on being pc. it’s not about being elitist or correct. it’s about having empathy for other people and treating them with respect and trying to shake all the prejudices that we’ve been brought up with in our culture.

the other thing that really bothered me about both of the bro-dog bands is that they left with all their friends after they played and I absolutely hate that. when jordan told them not to honk their horns and to try to be less noisy in the interest of neighbor relations they completely ignored them. enough shit talking – the bad was soon to be replaced anyway.

a band from nyc/philly called “x the owl” played next and they were interesting, energetic, and sincere. they proved that people trying to do interesting things musically and playing sincerely will always be more interesting and entertaining than buildups, breakdowns, jerking your guitar back and forth and jumping off the drums. the kids in this band were some of the nicest guys ever too. one of them was a teacher, another a law student and it was interesting to talk to them about how they balanced playing music with the other things in their lives. we ran into one of the guys in new york and he gave us a copy of their cd and a mix tape! what a swell bunch of guys! check them out if you get a chance.

we played next and by that time more kids had arrived including the kids in “kiwi” and “the lazer” and this kid nick who grew up with jimmy turri. so we played and of course it was rough because we hadn’t practiced together for weeks, but it was amazingly fun. people danced, and clapped, and had a generally good time.

“kiwi” played next, and this band is awesome. politically minded pop-punk with keyboards instead of guitars. i had heard some of their songs on a mix tape and was really into it, and seeing them play live was no disappointment. tons of energy and that nice pop/new-wavy edge that the keyboards bring but without any of the usual hipsterness that seems to accompany keyboards. they even did a “fifteen” cover. the kids were all extremely nice when we hung out with them afterwards.

“the lazer” played last and despite equipment troubles and a little sloppiness were brash and energetic. i really enjoyed it. after the show, one of the guys in the band offered to cut my hair into a mohawk and I obliged to make will and ryan shut up. I don’t really mind, but it’s funny that my hair always ends up in a mohawk on tour. we tried to spike it up with glue, but the hair was two heavy and it ended up in sort of a dread-hawk which wasn’t so cool. we hung out for a while and then when i went to bed, will went on a dumpster date with jordan and dumpstered cookies! yay!

we slept in late and after making some food, saying goodbye to jordan and kyle, and stopping at the record store made our on the short drive to philadelphia.

i don’t know what to say about the fact that our country is about to go to war other than that i am very, very sad. there are a million good, intellectual, rational arguments for why this is a bad idea, but for me, the human toll, the loss of life and the brutality of war is what frightens and saddens me. i don’t like to think that violence is ever a good strategy, but i could be convinced otherwise. the thing that makes me really angry is that it doesn’t seem like the president or his administration even once considered the human cost of a war. he didn’t acknowledge the implications of war, to us soldiers, to iraqi soldiers, to iraqi civillians, to us citizens in the wake of terrorist retaliation. it seemed like he never even gave peace a chance. i can live with someone saying, “i hear what you have to say, but i disagree”, but to be ignored entirely is a slap in the face. i don’t know what to say. when our country goes to war, “no war” doesn’t mean a whole lot. i guess all i want is peace. i want the war to be over as soon as possible. i want the us out of the middle east as soon as possible. i want my fellow americans to have the backbone to say, “yes, i support our troops, but i think the administration is wrong about this. let’s get it over with as soon as possible and see if we can repair the damage”. i don’t want unilateralism. what could be more beutiful than the idea of a world of neighbors. that we can resolve things peacefully, that we can live together, that there are more important things in life than living in fear, in worrying about preemption. please don’t make a world where we can’t live our lives with any meaning. i’m not asking this of the government because they aren’t listening. i’m asking this of my neighbors, of my community, of my family. in our own lives, in our own conflict, this isn’t the way we resolve things. we don’t go down the street and attack our neighbors – not because they don’t deserve it – but because we realize such barbarism isn’t worth it. for all the kids – we’re about to go on tour – what do you tell kids who are already politicized? of course they don’t support the war. all i can think of is that we need to appreciate what we have. we need to appreciate our family, our friends, our passions because there are people who don’t have that privilege and soon, we might not either. in a world where life might not be worth living maybe the best protest we can voice is to make our lives mean somehting. to treat each other as individuals, as humans, as brothers and sisters, in the way that governments and nations can’t. to make beauty and passion, to build things, to hold things together. i don’t know what else i can do.